The promise of sunshine lead me to my local at the end of the first week of Joint Warrior 11-2. It was a very busy Friday at Leuchars and it made the long walk round to the beach very worthwhile. Thanks to all those at Leuchars and Lossie who made it a memorable few days of sunshine, aircraft and banter.

One of three Luftwaffe Tornado ECRs from JbG32, taking part in the exercise, operating from Leuchars :

The light for their return in the afternoon was lovely :

The day was punctuated by approaches by several Tornado GR4s, including ZA543/036 as "Valkyrie 1" sporting several mission marks :

XV Squadron GR4 ZA544/037 also made an apperance, seen here performing a "swept" overshoot :

6 Squadron continue to grow in size at Leuchars, with several of its Typhoons taking part in Joint Warrior missions :

I was glad to catch 6 Squadron's T3 in action, seen here enjoying a few visual circuits :

Coningsby Typhoons also joined the mix, with a pair of newly repainted and recoded ex 6 Squadron jets from 17 Squadron :

Wearing one of those very expensive new helmets :

The cloud formations were stunning when "Rockstar 1", ZJ915/BY from 29(R) Squadron performed a few circuits. I thought this one deserved a wider crop :

We were just setting off to begin the walk back to the car when "Leuchars 22" called up, so it was out with the camera again. It turned out to be ZK320/EV on its delivery flight to the "Canopeners" :

Week 2, and it was up North for a long overdue trip to Lossie for a couple of days.

Here are a few highlights :

P-3C 159507/LN-507 of VP-45 "Pelicans" taxies out for an early morning mission :

P-3C 158215/LF-215 of VP-16 “War Eagles” lining up for departure :

The crew of VP-16 Commander's aircraft, 161333/LF-333, seemed happy, or was it bemused(?), to see the bank of excited spotters at the end of Lossie's Runway 05 as the aircraft backtracked prior to its afternoon mission :

Very nice Mark. I guess that at least some of the Leuchars shots were taken a week ago last friday, as I was at Coningsby that day when the 6 Sqn jet on delivery departed Coningsby. I was ready for the departure shot, but after taxiing up the far side and lining up in bright sunlight, he caught a cloud on departure. Was not impressed!